investment company Galaxy Digital Holdings, led by Mike Novogratz, has won the bid to buy GK8, an institutional self-custody platform for digital assets owned by Celsius Networkpending judicial approvals and certain closing conditions.
According to a December 2nd GK8 blog post and a Galaxy press release, If the acquisition goes ahead, Galaxy will acquire the platform’s nearly 40-person team as part of the deal, including cryptographers and blockchain engineers and an office in Tel Aviv.
GK8 is a self-custody platform for blockchain-based asset management that offers custody, staking, decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible token (NFT) support, tokenization, and trading.
The team behind the platform claims that you can conduct secure transactions on the blockchain without being connected to the internet, which considerably reduces the risks of hacking.
Celsius acquired GK8 in 2021 for USD 115 million, although Galaxy has not disclosed how much it offered during the bidding process.
Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of Galaxy, called the acquisition a “crucial cornerstone in our effort to create a truly full-service financial platform for digital assets.”
“The addition of GK8 to our core offering at this crucial time for our industry also underscores our continued willingness to seize strategic opportunities for Galaxy to grow sustainably,” he added.
Galaxy intends to support GK8’s ongoing operations as it uses its technology to develop its GalaxyOne trading platform, it said.
The founders of GK8 are expected toincluding CEO Lior Lamesh and CTO Shahar Shamai, stay with the company and run the new Galaxy custody business.
“With Galaxy’s backing, we intend to introduce exciting new offerings to the industry that showcase a combination of Galaxy’s best services and cryptocurrency, security and GK8’s unrivaled R&D skills,” Lamesh said.
Celsius has been in bankruptcy proceedings since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on July 13.and is discussing plans to sell some of its assets.
In the court filing, Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky has indicated that the company could sell bitcoin (BTC) mined by its mining operation to help pay off at least one of its loans and provide future income for the company.
In a September 15 filing with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, Celsius asked for permission to sell its stablecoin holdings.
Galaxy Digital was recently named in a $100 million lawsuit by institutional cryptocurrency custodian service and wallet operator BitGo for abandoning plans to acquire the firm.
Galaxy terminated the May 2021 agreement to acquire the firm on August 15, 2022, citing a breach of contract by BitGo. when he allegedly failed to deliver audited financial statements by July 31, 2022.
BitGo then revealed, in a post on September 13, that it was seeking more than $100 million in damages, accusing Galaxy of “undue repudiation” and “willful breach” of its acquisition agreement with BitGo.
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